History Lesson In safe hands From pharaohs to a 19th-century inventor, here's a brief history of the safe-deposit box. Even a pharaoh needs a place to keep things safe, which is why an ancient version of such a box was found in the tomb of the pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled over Egypt in the 13th century BCE. But even nonroyalty need a place to keep valuables. The Safe Deposit Company of New York, established in 1865 as the fi rst independent safedeposit company, provided not only a location for safekeeping trunks and packages, but also iron boxes with combination locks for rent. A box that looks more like the ones community banks use today was developed by inventor Henry Brown of Washington, D.C. In 1886, he received a patent for what was described as a " receptacle for storing and preserving papers. " Its forged metal and lock-and-key system resemble the 25 million safe-deposit boxes currently being rented in the U.S. -Julie Kendrick Henry Brown Brown patented a fire-safe receptacle in 1886, when fires often destroyed key files.